ment; and every fresh effort of that social spirit to find itself and to become effective has always had to face, at the beginning of each new phase in its activity, the charge of unwomanliness.
Compare that attack, fundamental in its nature, all-embracing in its condemnation, with the kind of attack levelled against the corresponding manifestations of the social or reforming spirit in man. In a man, new and unfamiliar indications of a stirring-up of the social conscience may earn such epithets of opprobrium as "rash," "hot-headed," "ill-considered," "impracticable," "utopian"—but we do not label them as "unmanly." Initiative, fresh adventure of thought or action in man have always been regarded as the natural concomitant of his nature. In a woman they have very generally been regarded as unnatural, unwomanly. The accusation is fundamental: it does not concern itself with any unsoundness in the doctrines put forward; but only with the fact that a woman has dared to become their mouthpiece or their instrument. Go back to any period in the last 200 years, where a definitely new attempt was made by woman toward civic thought and action, and you will find that, at the time, the charge of "unwomanliness" was levelled against her; you find also that in the succeeding generation that disputed territory has always become a centre of recognised womanly activity. Take, for instance, the establishment of higher training
